A few days ago, the 5th B-1 Grand Prix/B-1 グランプリ, a street food competition, was held in Kanagawa Prefecture next to Tokyo. Forty-six teams from various areas throughout Japan attended the contest. Each team cooked its local dish at an outdoor site and sold it for 300 to 500 Yen (around 3 to 5 US$). Visitors bought the local dishes they wanted to try. After they ate the dish called ABC, for example, if they were sure that the dish was good, they could throw their pair of disposable chopsticks provided into a rubbish box that had a name plate for ABC. The team that was able to obtain the heaviest rubbish box was the winner.Thursday, September 23, 2010
Younger people trying to revitalize their hometowns--the 5th contest for grade-B local dishes
As I mentioned in my previous post (click here ), some younger people are doing something in order to revitalize their hometowns which are suffering from the shrinking population and poor economic conditions.
With the economic downturn in Japan, people who used to have an interest in traveling abroad came to pay more attention to domestic travel, although now, the super strong Yen is encouraging people to go abroad. As a matter of fact, for the past few years, bus tours have been enjoying great popularity especially among women and retired couples since these tours are cost-effective and easy to attend. In part because the tendency of people to pay more attention to domestic travel, a lot of areas are trying to attract people by popularizing street food (grade-B local dishes) that locals love such as たこ焼き/Takoyaki in Osaka.
A few days ago, the 5th B-1 Grand Prix/B-1 グランプリ, a street food competition, was held in Kanagawa Prefecture next to Tokyo. Forty-six teams from various areas throughout Japan attended the contest. Each team cooked its local dish at an outdoor site and sold it for 300 to 500 Yen (around 3 to 5 US$). Visitors bought the local dishes they wanted to try. After they ate the dish called ABC, for example, if they were sure that the dish was good, they could throw their pair of disposable chopsticks provided into a rubbish box that had a name plate for ABC. The team that was able to obtain the heaviest rubbish box was the winner.
In the contest, all of the teams were able to let many people know about their local dishes, in hope that their dishes can make people have an interest in their towns at the very least and inspire people to visit there. Should one win the contest, the positive economic impact on the winner's hometown will be surely generated mainly because the winner would be widely reported in the news. In fact, some areas that ranked in the top 10 in the past contests successfully boosted their local economy.
During the recession period, people can pay attention to what they usually don't pay attention to when the economy is strong, and they may find something they shouldn't have neglected. This sometimes leads to create new businesses. In addition, looking back at the past, new businesses often started in local areas. I hope that something that can help us reform our ailing economy will be generated.
A few days ago, the 5th B-1 Grand Prix/B-1 グランプリ, a street food competition, was held in Kanagawa Prefecture next to Tokyo. Forty-six teams from various areas throughout Japan attended the contest. Each team cooked its local dish at an outdoor site and sold it for 300 to 500 Yen (around 3 to 5 US$). Visitors bought the local dishes they wanted to try. After they ate the dish called ABC, for example, if they were sure that the dish was good, they could throw their pair of disposable chopsticks provided into a rubbish box that had a name plate for ABC. The team that was able to obtain the heaviest rubbish box was the winner.